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EJToday: Top Headlines

EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.

"Hundreds of thousands of Kanawha Valley residents, businesses and workers will receive up to $151 million in compensation from West Virginia American Water Co. and Eastman Chemical Co. for the effects of the January 2014 water crisis, under related class-action settlements made public late Monday afternoon."

"The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, has unveiled new energy products aimed at illustrating the benefits of combining his firm, which makes electric cars and batteries, with solar installer SolarCity."

"Loraine Helber runs the public housing authority in Punta Gorda, Florida, a city of 18,000 just north of Fort Myers at the mouth of the Peace River. In March, she hopes to celebrate a milestone: the opening of new apartments for the elderly, replacing about 80 units destroyed by the hurricane."

"Nothing sells quite like celebrity. And Leonardo DiCaprio is working hard selling climate change. The A-List actor has crisscrossed the globe to raise awareness of the long-term health and wellbeing of our planet. Part of those travels aired Sunday on National Geographic: An hour-and-a-half long documentary looking at the impacts of—and alternatives to—our fossil fuel addiction."

"About 300 million children in the world breathe highly toxic air, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a report on Monday that used satellite imagery to illustrate the magnitude of the problem."

"The controversy over genetically modified crops has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat. But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed a more basic problem — genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides."

"Exxon Mobil, in a concession to market and regulatory pressures, said Friday that it might be forced to write down the value of some of its oil and gas assets in Canada and elsewhere if energy prices remain low through the end of the year."

"U.S. prosecutors on Friday regrouped to strategize for their next trial of armed militants who occupied a wildlife center in Oregon the day after seven others at a related trial were surprisingly acquitted of all charges."

"Of all the environmental and climate change challenges facing North Carolina—including its vulnerability to sea level rise, the extreme flooding from Hurricane Matthew, the wisdom of drilling offshore and fracking throughout the state—the one issue Gov. Pat McCrory has struggled with most politically is coal ash."

"RUSSELL, Pa. — There are 44 miles of dirt roads in rural Farmington Township, Warren County, hard against the New York state line, and it’s not uncommon to see horse-drawn Amish buggies clip-clopping up and down them. In summer, Amish children walk the roads barefoot. It’s also not uncommon over the last decade to see tanker trucks spraying and spreading thousands of gallons of salty “brine,” wastewater from gas and oil well drilling, onto those same roads."